New strategies for museums in the digital age

Geraldine Kendall, 17.12.2014

One-day seminar on maximising digital opportunities for your museum

How can museums ensure they are ready for the opportunities of the digital age? The Museums Association (MA) is running a one-day Museum Practice seminar next month for museum professionals interested in maximising the benefits of digital technology for their organisation.

Using the latest case studies, the panel of expert speakers will demonstrate how museums are using digital technology in exhibitions, developing smartphone apps that people want to download and designing websites that meet visitors’ needs.

Delegates will also hear practical guidance on developing, implementing and maintaining an effective digital strategy, and the latest thinking on how to naturalise digital into their museums’ wider vision and support the digital literacy of their workforce.

Speakers include Andrew Lewis, the digital content delivery manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), and Matt Jukes, the head of digital transformation at the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Delegates will also have a chance to see products and meet representatives from leading digital suppliers including Acoustiguide, ATS Heritage, Surface Impression and Guide ID. The event is sponsored by Acoustiguide.

The MA’s online publications editor Rebecca Atkinson, who is coordinating the seminar, said: "There are lots of conferences that examine new and shiny ways that museums are using technology, but the aim of Let's Get Digital is to focus on the importance of having a strategy in place that ensures whatever your museum is doing, it fits with wider mission and goals and isn't just 'digital for digital's sake'.

"The day will be a mix of advice-led case studies from the V&A, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, and Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, as well as practical discussions about how to develop digital strategies. We're also really excited to have Matt Jukes from the ONS speaking, which will be a great opportunity to look beyond the sector and talk about the role the government's digital strategy."

The seminar takes place on 20 January 2015 at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Space will be limited to book now to reserve your place.

Museum Computer Group members can attend this event at the MA member rate.

Comments

Good to see the emphasis on linking digital and real world approaches. In particular I think it's important that if museums do have separate digtal strategies (and there is an argument against separate strategies!) they read particularly closely with overall comms and interpretation/engagement strategies.